I am genuinely opposed to the rampant both sidesification of the modern world. I don’t think everything requires a patient ear, an open mind, a pensive glance, and enough consideration to grant validity.
The Dodgers are evil. Fascism is eviler. Fresh bagels should never be toasted. These things needn’t be both-sidesed.
But the San Francisco Giants current two-game skid? We can both sides that.
The Giants, after winning eight of their first nine games, have lost two in a row. Bad! In those two games, they scored zero runs. Very bad!
But in those two games, they also allowed just three runs. Good! Tuesday’s loss featured just two pitchers, potential future rotation staples Landen Roupp and Hayden Birdsong, and they combined to allow just one run. Very good!
The future is bright, and the near future is bright, and the present is kind of bumming you out a bit.
But it was also a reminder as to the slim margins that baseball so frequently snuggles up to. Games are won and lost by the most fragile of frames, and oftentimes those margins are not dictated by the 20-plus players on the field. A call by an umpire here or there can influence the outcome of a game. An odd bounce or ricochet can propel one team to a victory they otherwise would never have known. A ballpark or the day’s wind can determine as much as a bat or a glove.
It’s easy to forget that when the team is winning, such as when the Giants rattled off seven straight victories, starting with a win last weekend against the same Cincinnati Reds team that has now held them scoreless on back-to-back nights. And it’s easy to remember that when the team is losing. Which, if you recall, they just did. Twice.
Yes, that’s when you notice the game-defining subtleties that didn’t go their way, which your brain is more keen to gloss over when they do go the Giants way, and the result is a win.
Like during Monday’s 2-0 loss, when Jung Hoo Lee came to bat in the sixth inning, with two outs and a runner on first. He hit a ball deep into right-center field. It had an .850 expected batting average, and would have been a home run in 19 ballparks … including the one where the Reds play half of their games. It was smacked by the firm backhand of Triples Alley, and fell listlessly for an inning-ending flyout. In the ninth inning, Heliot Ramos came to bat with two outs and the tying run on base. He smoked a line drive with an expected batting average of .890. It was caught by left fielder Jacob Hurtubise. It ended the game.
And during Tuesday’s 1-0 loss, similar shenanigans unfolded. In the fifth inning, with two outs and the tying run on third base, Ramos again smoked a ball, this time higher in the air and to right field. It would have been a home run in two ballparks, including the one the Giants will visit this weekend. It only had an expected batting average of .470, but in the brief moment where right fielder Jake Fraley broke in before realizing he was looking at the blueprint upside-down, that number rose and rose, only to come tumbling down when Fraley made a heroic leaping catch. Still needing just one run in the ninth inning, Matt Chapman’s attempt to start a one-out rally fell short when his line drive, carrying an expected batting average of .870, found the opposing .130 of the equation.
These aren’t excuses, so please don’t read them as such. They’re narratives. The ball breaks one way, the Giants win seven in a row, and you think, by god, they’re so good! The ball breaks the other way, they get shutout twice in a row, and you think, by god, I’m so stupid.
The breaks will even out over the course of the year. It says so right here in the handbook, right next to the part about the Dodgers being evil. It’s best, then, to focus on the things that existed without the confines of breaks good or bad.
Like Landen Roupp. Like Hayden Birdsong.
After an up-and-down season debut, Roupp crafted an expert essay titled, Why Bob Melvin Made Me the Fifth Starter on Tuesday. He made the Reds hitters look largely foolish which, in fairness, is something they haven’t really needed assistance to do lately.
Roupp is still getting up to speed, and so Melvin limited him to just six innings, even though his pitch count was sitting at just 81. Still and all, it was the longest start of his brief Major League career, and his longest start at any level since September 2, 2022.
It wasn’t the overpowering stuff that we’ve occasionally seen from Roupp. He only struck out four batters, and had just eight swinging strikes. But I always find it comforting when a young pitcher can control a game without missing countless bats. It’s a long, long season, and for the vast majority of pitchers, success is predicated on being able to imitate Logan Webb at least as often as being able to imitate Blake Snell. And imitate Webb is exactly what Roupp did (ironically a night after Webb had one of the best strikeout totals of his career).
He got ground balls and pop ups and and a large amount of soft contact, and while the Reds tagged him for seven hits, he was rarely in trouble. The only run he allowed came in the third inning, when Spencer Steer led off with a double, moved to third on a single by Fraley, and scored on a ground ball courtesy of Jose Trevino.
Perhaps most importantly and impressively, Roupp avoided any self-inflicted damage. After walking four batters in his first game of the year, the youngster issued no free passes, and had three-ball counts against just three of the 23 batters he faced.
There’s no drama about the starting rotation. Roupp’s spot is secure, as are the other four names. But if there were drama, Birdsong would be right there poke his head through the door and say hello.
The Giants finally found a time for their electric young right-hander to pitch a larger chunk of innings, and it was a showing of faith from Melvin. Birdsong entered in the seventh inning of a one-run game and never left. Even after giving up a leadoff double in the ninth. Even after that runner advanced to third with just one out.
And Birdsong rewarded that faith, getting himself out of that jam, after breezing through the two prior innings.
The pitching looks as good as advertised, and it feels safe to assume that at some point the Giants will score a run again. But for all my verbose introductory paragraphs, the margins can’t exactly be blamed here. The Giants had a pair of hits each from the two backups who started the game, first baseman Casey Schmitt and catcher Sam Huff. The rest of the lineup went 0-24, with a leadoff walk by Ramos the only time any of them reached base. Nick Lodolo and the Reds’ bullpen had their number.
It turns out, unfortunately, that Roupp wasn’t imitating Logan Webb or Blake Snell. He was imitating Matt Cain.
